Hundreds of workers of the generic drugmaker Teva have held demonstrations to protest the multinational pharmaceutical company’s decision to lay off nearly 1,800 of its workforce as a half-day strike over the move suspended key services across the occupying entity.

Israel’s trade union Histadrut on Sunday held the crippling strike to voice its strong dissent against the move by the Israeli Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs, which intends to make 1,750 employees redundant in Israel.

The layoffs, almost one-quarter of the company’s local workforce, are part of plans, announced last week, to lay off 14,000 other Teva workers across the world over the next two years, amounting to over a quarter of its global workforce of over 55,000.